what made Rackham read this as a question?

Latin Learning Latin
1

Cicero, de finibus bonorum …


Please help me better to see when a sentence is a question. Here is the Latin sentence, which I failed to identify as a question:

III. Quamquam si plane sic verterem Platonem aut Aristotelem ut verterunt nostri poetae fabulas, male, credo, mererer de meis civibus si ad eorum cognitionem divina illa ingenia transferrem.

And here is the H. Rackham translation

Yet even supposing I gave a direct translation of Plato or Aristotle, exactly as our poets have done with the plays, would it not, pray, be a patriotic service to introduce those transcendent intellects to the acquaintance of my fellow-countrymen?

http://www.loebclassics.com/view/marcus_tullius_cicero-de_finibus_bonorum_et_malorum/1914/pb_LCL040.9.xml

A French translation also makes this sentence a question, here:
http://neptune.fltr.ucl.ac.be/corpora/Concordances/cicero_finibus/ligne05.php?numligne=4&mot=#debut

2

In the Latin it’s not in fact a question, but male, credo, mererer is heavily sarcastic. He’s saying the opposite of what he actually means, and the translator evidently thought that the best way of conveying the sense was to eliminate the sarcasm and substitute the actual meaning in the form of a rhetorical question. If credo were not present it would be a question, with much the same meaning, but only the context would show that it was a question. (That’s often the way with animated questions, though sometimes you have -ne as an explicit question marker at the outset, functioning much like ¿ in Spanish.) Cicero writes rhetorically.

—The sentence would actually be much easier to understand if male, credo, mererer were negatived: non male, credo, mererer. Then it would be a simple statement. I wonder if that has ever been proposed. But Cicero often uses parenthetical credo sarcastically.

3

Very helpful, mwh; I never considered sarcasm. Perhaps it’s a little like a teacher saying with a sarcastic tone of voice, “If I made it clear and interesting, wouldn’t the students just hate it”.

4

credo could be translated “I suppose” to convey the sarcastic irony.

5

Very interesting, Qimmik. I went back to this: http://athirdway.com/glossa/

At the very end of the article on credo, this appeared:

(g). Absol. : credo inserted, like opinor, puto, etc., and the Gr. οιμαι, as a considerate, polite, or ironical expression of one’s opinion, I believe, as I think, I suppose, I dare say, etc.: credo, misericors est, Plaut. Am. 1, 1, 144; so placed first, id. Cas. 2, 6, 3; Ter. And. 2, 1, 13; Cic. Cat. 1, 2, 5; id. Sull. 4, 11; Caes. B. C. 3, 70; Sall. C. 52, 13; Liv. 4, 17, 7; Hor. S. 2, 2, 90: Mulciber, credo, arma fecit, Plaut. Ep. 1, 1, 32; so id. Truc. 2, 5, 27; Caes. B. C. 2, 31; Cic. Fin. 1, 3, 7; id. Tusc. 1, 22, 52; Verg. A. 6, 368 et saep.: aut jam hic aderit, credo hercle, aut jam adest, Plaut. Ep. 2, 2, 74.

Note the “Cic. Fin.1,3,7. . . .” That may cite the very sentence under study in this thread.